Caprese Salad with Balsamic Chicken

Guess what? Salads don't have to be boring and they can be filling! There are a few tricks to making a salad a meal. I'm going to use this salad as an example.

1. Don't think all salads are healthy. That Wendy's salad you ate the other day is packed with artificial junk, fat, calories, and sugars.

2. Store bought salad dressing can take a salad from hero to zero in a second. Read labels or make your own dressing!

3. Use leafy green lettuce. The lighter in color and crisper the lettuce, the fewer nutrients.

4. Add filling toppings like meat, legumes, grains, and nuts.

This salad ticks off all the boxes. It has EASY homemade dressing, tons of dark green lettuce, quinoa, cheese, and chicken. Filling and healthy but still delicious! I gave my husband a big bowl of this salad yesterday for dinner. Not only had he been working on our boat all day, he also had just returned from a boot camp workout. He was a hungry puppy! He gobbled it up and when I asked him if he needed anything else he said he was full! If it will fill him up, it'll be a good meal for anyone!

I cook these chicken tenders all the time. They're easy and flavorful and can be added to any salad, in bowls, thrown in with pasta...they're the definition of versatile.

Another thing that I've recently started doing is making salad jars. I love taking salads to work but it's such a hassle having to pack the dressing separate and mixing it before leaves salads soggy. Yuck. Making salad jars is the perfect solution. You put the more dense ingredients on the bottom with the dressing and put the more delicate stuff on top. For this salad, I started with chicken then layered the quinoa, cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes, and lettuce/basil. The chicken soaks overnight in the dressing, making it even more flavorful!

All of this came out of that one jar!

Ingredients

Balsamic chicken tenders (2 per jar/serving)

Mozerella balls

Cooked quinoa

Fresh Basil

Cucumber

Tomatoes

Lettuce (I use Power Greens mix from Trader Joe's)

Balsamic vin

Olive oil

Sea salt

Pepper

Garlic Powder

Directions

(takes about 15-20 mins)

1. Follow this recipe for the chicken.

2. In a bowl mix about 4 TBSP olive oil with about 3-4 TBSP balsamic vinegar, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, salt/pepper to taste. Mix well with a fork and set aside.

3. If you don't already have it cooked, cook quinoa.

4. Cut cucumbers into slices and tomatoes into bite-sized pieces.

If serving right away

1. Add lettuce and basil to a bowl and drizzle with a little of the dressing. Chop the salad a little with kitchen scissors.

2. Cut up warm (not hot!) or cold chicken and arrange all the topping on your bed of lettuce. Pour remaining dressing over the salad, focusing on the cheese and quinoa.

If making into jars

1. Add all of the dressing to the jar

2. Then add in this order- Cold chicken, cheese, quinoa, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce *

3. Store in the fridge for 1 or 2 days.

It's important the chicken is cold for jars so it won't create steam in the jar.

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